


After the Adventure.

by flashwitch



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Afterlife, Character Death, F/M, It's so good!, M/M, Sad, don't spoil it for yourselves, multiple characters die, spoilers for Song and Story part 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 22:59:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11838783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashwitch/pseuds/flashwitch
Summary: Magnus is just the first to go.





	After the Adventure.

Magnus is only the first to go. The first of the seven who saved the world. Lucretia follows soon after, her skin tight on her bones. Age has shrunk her, but all of her accomplishments with the Bureau of Benevolence remain large in the minds of those she helped. She is dearly missed and the world gets a little harsher, a little darker in the wake of her loss. It is expected, she's human after all and they don't live long, but it still hurts. 

Then Davenport’s letters stop abruptly.. After a month of silence, a young man comes to the door of Taako’s kitchen, a roll of parchment tight in his hand.

It reads:

_My friends,_

_I am sorry to be leaving you. I wish I could see you all once more, but we had a hundred years together and more. And I don’t think I’m going to make it home. I am old, friends and hurt._

_There were marauders attacking a fishing boat. I forgot I wasn’t a young man anymore, and I went in to help._

_Healing hasn’t worked. I just don’t have the energy for it, and my injuries are pretty bad._

_I think I’m dying._

_Soon I will see all our old friends again. Do me a favour? Don’t cry for me. I’m not sad. I’ve seen so much. I’ve seen the world. I’ve seen the worlds.  And I will see you all again, one day._

_Joyfully yours,_

_Davenport._

The young man stutters through an explanation and rubs at his eyes as he talks and Taako listens and asks questions and cracks a couple of jokes. He mourns in private. Well, he let’s Kravitz see he's upset, but no one else. 

* * *

Merle isn’t alone when he dies. His children, and the children he’s nurtured and taught, are around him. Taako and Lup are there too, and Barry comes to hold Lup’s’ hand and collect Merle’s soul

He knew his time was coming. His knee ached when it rained now, and his soulwood arm had shed it’s leaves. He’d done his work. His children were grown. He wasn’t ready exactly, but he wasn’t fighting it either.

Then one morning, as he’s sitting looking out at the sea, watching a young man ride a board across the waves, trying to remember why it seemed so familiar (his memory, always a little faulty, has truly begun to fail over the last months), a man comes and sits beside him. He has brown skin, the colour of autumn leaves, and tightly curled hair that’s woven with vines. He smells like the grass after a rainfall.

“Hello Merle.”

“Oh, hello. Do, do I know you?” He looks the man over, noting his strange, goat-like legs, and his kind eyes.

“I know you.” He sidesteps the question, not wanting to make the old man feel sad or confused. “You will always be my Merle.”

They sit together, Merle’s family around them, watching the sea and the children playing on the sand, and they don’t feel the need to talk.

Eventually, the sun sets, and Barry leads Merle home. 

* * *

Finally, Taako and Lup are the only ones left. They are old. And that is strange, neither one of them expected to live this long. They don’t look it though, glamour spells or just their constant energy making them seem years younger than they actually are.

They have seen the world change and grow and  they have raised generations of wizards and every single person knows their names. They are loved. They are not alone.

Taako goes first. He tells Lup that it’s right this way. He couldn’t be alone, he couldn’t be without her, not again. He goes out in a heroic blaze of glory, defending his family from a group of spider orcs who shoot flaming poison from their fingertips. That is the story Lup tells anyway. In truth, it’s his heart that does him in. It was always large, and he has not looked after it in his elder years, eating too much of his own good food, and never getting enough exercise. Kravitz takes his hand and leads him on as the pain in his chest fades.

* * *

And that leaves Lup. She isn’t done. There is so much more she wants to do, wants to see. She will never have done enough, seen enough. But she never wanted to be alone. Barry is still here, for all that he has been on the other side for decades, working with Kravitz shepherding souls back to where they belong. She works with them, on this side of the curtain, for years, until Barry insists she retires. She knows he’s right when her spells start going strange, sometimes failing, sometimes just having bizarre unintended effects. She’s always been able to rely on her magic before, but age is stealing that from her too.

She is walking in the woods. Just taking some time to herself. She is the last one left and that means that she gets seven times the attention now. She misses being an adventurer. She misses being just Lup.

She takes a fall. Hits her head.

Then Barry is there. He wants to heal her, starts to say the spell, but…

“Babe. I think it’s time.” Her hands shake sometimes now, and she has trouble matching names to things. She is surrounded by strangers who think they know her and she is tired of being alone. “Fuck this place. I’m donezo.”

He sits with her, talking to her, taking her pain, as her life bleeds away on the forest floor.

* * *

Barry takes her hand and helps her up, and she winces, expecting her hip to bother her, but there is no pain, not anymore. She holds up her hands and sees the skin is smooth and young. She is herself again.

“Lup, I’m sorry,” Barry starts to say, and what, like he’s expecting her to be mad? She  _asked_  him to let her go, to let her pass over and here she is. She grabs him and kisses him, as passionately as she ever did.

“Shut the fuck up, babes.”

She’ll go to work with him and Kravitz again soon enough, but first Barry leads her to an island. 

In the centre of it, there is a beautiful hand built cottage. It is old and weathered, but still strong and obviously lovingly kept up. There is a house boat pulled up against the shore, painted beautifully with intricate patterns (she recognises Lucretia’s handy work). It is pulled up outside a small dome shaped dwelling, also painted in the same style. Nearby, on the beach, is a brightly coloured beach house, with a hand painted sign. It reads ‘Merle-garitaville’.

On the other side of the cottage are two houses, both very similar. They are both modern looking things, with lots of glass and all sorts of cool gadgets (she spots a small ride on train following tracks around the two houses, a pole to slide down from a second floor balcony, a slide from the side of the house down into the sea that surrounds them). Between the two identical houses is a treehouse sitting in an apple tree: it is labelled ‘Clubhouse: Twins only’.

“Ours is the one on the left,” Barry says, pointing to one of the identical houses. “Taako designed them both, with help from Magnus and Julia of course. Do you like it? If not, that’s OK, you can redo it however you like.”

“Taako designed it? I’m surprised it’s still standing.” She laughs. Her brother had never been the best at building things. Then she takes in what Barry said. “What is this place?”

“It’s… it’s a waystation. The Raven Queen wanted us to have somewhere to go. A place to be. All of us work for her in one way or another, although I think eventually we’ll have to move on to what comes next.”

“When we’re ready for a new adventure,” Lup says. Her chest feels warm and tight and she is almost afraid to step forward, in case the island disappears, in case the people she wants to see are not there. But Lup has never let fear stop her from doing anything. She takes a step forward. “Hey!” she yells, loud as she can, “hey! Losers! Where’s my welcome party?!”

* * *

  ****

**Author's Note:**

> I had so many emotions after listening to the finale. 
> 
> The houseboat belongs to Davenport, the dome is Lucretia's. I think the rest speak for themselves.  
> Also on my Tumblr, flashwitch.tumblr.com


End file.
